IT Disaster Prevention

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IT Disaster Prevention

Any business that relies on a computer in any way must undertake a risk assessment and plan for disaster prevention and recovery. What risks does your business face and what would happen if your systems failed and data was lost? Will your business reputation be damaged? Is there a risk of liability and legal action? Will you lose productivity?

Risk assessment

Identify the possible hazards that might occur to your systems and data. These will fall broadly in three areas:

Human error
Physical accidents
Malicious damage

Prioritise the data and systems that are most critical to your business, review risks and security safeguards, and then formulate a Business Continuity Plan so that if the worst should happen, you have plans in place for the quickest possible recovery.

Risks might involve the complete loss of data on your hard drive, virus infection, a hacker getting access to your computer, spyware and malware (more on these on Special Interest Articles page). Viruses may be introduced by email, websites and disks.

Risk minimisation

If you communicate by email and store financial accounts, business and contacts databases on your computer, a breach of security or loss of data could be disastrous. Some simple rules will reduce risk:

there are over 115000 viruses in the wild, with some 2000+ new ones being launched every day - install good anti-virus software and most importantly keep it up to date. All systems download virus definitions automatically but not all systems download program patches and updates automatically; check yours by doing a live update.
install a firewall and check for updates
make sure that all links to external networks are appropriately firewalled and encrypted
make sure you have a company IT policy prohibiting staff from loading any unauthorised software onto their work computers and with particular regard to home-working staff, their laptops must not be used for any purpose other than business
prohibit staff from copying files to a flash or floppy drive to work on at home and then copying back to a company computer; it is safer to email files so they pass through antivirus screening.
install spyware protection (Special Interest Articles)
Clear out your browsing history on a regular basis - see below - otherwise your web movements are being tracked by someone.
if you are using Windows make sure you download all security updates and programme patches
encrypt very sensitive data
make sure you have a strong password
change all your passwords regularly - at least every 6 months but preferably more often.
make sure your premises where the computer is located is secure
make sure your computer and telephone connection are protected with a surge protector
limit and password protect access
back up data continuously or at least once a day and keep in secure place offsite
do regular reviews to ensure that staff in your company have appropriate access to read and update information and that such access is trackable
keep computers out of public view
regularly 'clean up' your hard drive to keep it running at optimum performance. (In Windows look under Accessories and System Tools or download software, for example, www.ccleaner.com)
The following website has useful information: http://www.getsafeonline.org/

Clear out your browser history

The best protection from having your web movements tracked, is to clear your browsing history on a regular basis, including your cookies and browser cache. The downside is that preferences, saved usernames and passwords that you’ve entered will be lost and need to be re-entered. The upside is knowing that your privacy is better protected.

Your browser cache is usually overwritten as needed, but will store information about your browsing history until cleared. Web browsers keep cookies until they expire, which is anywhere from days after being activated to 30 years. Internet Explorer and Firefox both have features that enable you to clear your private data easily from the menu bar.

In Internet Explorer 7, simply select Delete Browsing History from the Tools menu. From here you can delete cookies, temporary Internet files, Web history, form data or stored passwords. You can also click Delete all to remove all of these items at once.

In Firefox, select Options from the Tools menu. In the Options window click the Privacy button. The first time you visit this preference, you’ll have to set the default options. In the Private Data section, click Settings. Decide which items you want to have cleared and then click OK. Close the Options window by clicking OK. When you would like to clear the items you selected in the Private Data section, select Clear Private Data from the Tools menu. Alternately, you can clear your private data from the keyboard by hitting Control+Shift+Delete.

You can greatly increase your online privacy without too much inconvenience just by taking a few simple steps.

ID Theft

http://www.id-theftprotect.com

ID Theft Protect is designed to identify how at threat you and your family are personally from identity fraud / identity theft, and provide information and solutions to both current and future threats to your privacy.

If any readers would like to contribute more advice on this subject, we will be pleased to hear from you. Contact us.

Disclaimer: Jayga Ltd makes no warranties or representations regarding any company or service listed on this page nor accuracy or the fitness for purpose of the content provided.

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